Various digital musical instruments are known for producing music. Examples of digital musical instruments include musical keyboards, guitar or guitar-like instruments and so forth. The digital musical instruments generate electric signals for producing musical notes. Such devices may be used in, for example, musical performances or for playing video games. The use of various symbols to depict musical notes in musical notation is well known. Further, in case of stringed instruments such as guitar or guitar-like instruments the musical notation may be presented in form of a tablature. The tablature indicates the finger positions on the instruments rather than musical pitches.
Generally, the guitar or guitar-like digital musical instruments are string-less and include mechanical keys to generate musical notes. For example, a published U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/383,750 assigned to Clifford S. Elion, discloses an electronic fingerboard for a stringed instrument. The strings are either embossed on the neck of the guitar or are non-existent. Some techniques as described in U.S. Patent Publication No. assigned to Ser. No. 12/115,519 assigned to Starr Labs Inc., implements keys on the neck of the guitar and strings for note articulation. Therefore, such guitar-like instruments may have a body in the shape of a guitar, but do not provide strings. As a result, the detection of finger positions on the strings may not be possible.
An existing technique provides a stringed electronic musical instrument. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,563,977 assigned to iGuitar, Inc., describes a stringed guitar that can generate electric signals. However, the generation of musical information is not completely digital. For example, the musical instrument as described requires transducers to sense the vibration of the strings to generate analog signals. Further, the detection of finger position may not be possible.
Another existing technology as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,323,633 assigned to Optek Music Systems, Inc., describes transmission of finger positions of stringed instrument to another. However, the finger positions are determined based on the string data, such as frequency of strings, and not directly based on the position of the finger.
U.S. Patent Application No. 2010/0087254 describes the use of sensor to detect the finger position and uses it to generate a digital signal containing information as to the notes being played. Further, U.S. Pat. No. 6,162,981 assigned to Visual Strings, LLC, describes detection of strings that are in contact with a fingerboard and the position of touch. However, these techniques are limited to using the finger positions for detecting the note to be played.
Therefore, techniques are desirable that can efficiently detect the positions of the fingers of a user. Moreover, techniques are desirable to use the finger positions to generate musical notation.